The unaffordable cost of benefits sanctions

09 December 2016

A group of Church leaders have had a letter they wrote
published in the Guardian, calling for an urgent review of the
sanctions system.

As published in the letters pages of The Guardian on Friday 9 December
2016:

The benefit sanctions system is a damaging, expensive failure.
Churches, as well as charities, see daily the human cost of this
failure in people left without enough money to buy the very basics
of life. The recent National Audit Office report has now shown that
taxpayers also bear a financial cost for this failure (Report, 30 November). There is no
evidence that the UK sanctions regime is cost-effective. In 2015
our report Time to
Rethink Benefit Sanctions revealed that each day 100
people unfit for work because of mental health problems received a
sanction - mainly for missing appointments with work programme
providers.

We have seen the harm these sanctions caused and have met people
who were scarred by their experiences. The NAO now tells us that,
on average, these sanctions actually reduced people's short and
long-term job prospects and led to reduced earnings for those who
subsequently got work. The government has repeatedly stated that
sanctions improve employment prospects. The NAO confirmed that the
Department for Work and Pensions had no direct evidence for this.
Moreover, we now know that the DWP held data that could show
whether the sanctions system was working or not. Not only did the
department fail to analyse this data, it refused to share it with
other researchers. It also discouraged its contractors from
assisting these researchers. In effect the DWP appears to have
deliberately made itself blind to the failures of the sanctions
regime.

As church leaders we are deeply concerned that without proper
investigation of the consequences harsh punishments are given to
people in already difficult circumstances. We again add our voices
to the many government, charity, church and parliamentary bodies
calling urgently for a full independent review of the benefit
sanctions regime.

Alan YatesGeneral assembly moderator,
United Reformed ChurchRev Dr Richard FrazerChurch and Society
Council convenor, Church of ScotlandRev Lynn Green General secretary of the
Baptist Union of Great Britain Right Rev John Davies Bishop of Swansea
and BreconRev Dr Roger Walton President of the
Methodist ConferenceRachel Lampard Vice-president of the
Methodist ConferenceNiall Cooper Director, Church Action on
Poverty